High School Students and Value

If someone posed the question do you consider yourself valuable how would you answer? Recently in a survey to high school students in China, Korea, America and Japan the results were staggering. According to an article in the Japan Times, “44.9 percent of Japanese said yes to some extent, compared with 83.8 percent of the American students, 83.7 percent of the Koreans and 80.2 percent of the Chinese.” In essence over half of the Japanese high school students don’t consider themselves valuable. If you don’t consider yourself valuable then how does that affect how you view other people?

Value is just one topic the Gospel answers. Are humans valuable??…YES! One reason we are valuable is because the God of the Universe created us each uniquely and gifted us each uniquely. In the parenting study I teach the first section is all about how each child is unique and valuable. We could go on and on, but this was another sobering reminder of how important our work here is in Japan.